Showing titles in Horse Racing

Set in 1950s America at a time when people stopped looking west and started looking up: a breathtakingly beautiful debut novel of revolution, chance and the gambles we take with the human heart. Muriel, newly married and newly orphaned, works as a waitress in a San Diego diner. As she pours coffee and empties ashtrays, she eavesdrops on her customers, the ex-jockeys and trainers of the Del Mar racetrack. When she begins, secretly, to bet on the horses and, shockingly, to win, she feels strangely unready to share her good luck and its origins with her husband, Lee.

It was a cold and foggy February night in 1983 when a group of armed thieves crept onto Ballymany Stud, near The Curragh in County Kildare, Ireland, to steal Shergar, one of the thoroughbred industry's most renowned stallions. The thieves demanded a hefty ransom for the safe return of one of the most valuable Thoroughbreds in the world, but the ransom was never paid and Shergar's remains have never been found.

Fifty-six million years ago, the earliest equid walked the earth-and beginning with the first-known horse-keepers of the Copper Age, the horse has played an integral part in human history. Combining fascinating anthropological detail and incisive personal anecdotes, Susanna Forrest draws from an immense range of archival documents as well as literature and art to illustrate how our evolution has coincided with that of horses.

Tony (A. P.) McCoy has collected a record 20 consecutive jump jockey titles to date, and since 1992 he has ridden over 4,300 winners. This powerfully honest memoir looks at life at the very top in National Hunt racing - and beyond, discussing fatherhood, writing novels and his decision to retire while he's still a long way ahead. It is a definitive autobiography that is themed around A. P.'s 10 most important races: his first ride, first race, first fall, first win, greatest disappointment - and greatest triumph.

In an era of spectacular thoroughbreds, Spectacular Bid was perhaps the most exalted racehorse of them all. In 1979, he won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes—and transcended his sport on a run of 12 consecutive stakes victories—but his quest for the Triple Crown was lost with a third-place finish in the Belmont Stakes due to a series of bizarre events that have never been accurately reported. In The Fast Ride, Jack Gilden tells the story of what really happened that day the Bid lost the biggest race of his life.

The home run horse, the runner that makes your fortune and changes your life, can come from anywhere. This book will explore the quest for the superior thoroughbred, who takes up the search for a life-changing horse, and why they do it with limited success.

Every year the Grand National produces very different stories from jockeys and horses alike; uplifting scenes from a victor and heartbreak when a mere inch divides the loser from the winner at the end of nearly four-and-a-half miles and 30 challenging fences. The race has evolved over the years, but there is one constant: luck, or the lack of it. How fitting, then, that in 1839 the first winner was named Lottery. 

David Watts and Johnny Winall have over 30 years’ experience as independent bookies. Their shocking story takes you behind the scenes that some in the horseracing world would rather not see the light of day. Their roller-coaster journey takes in some staggering tales from the Grand National, Cheltenham Festival, and Royal Ascot. Along with a refreshingly honest account of some calamitous business dealings, the book reveals how bookmakers think and hot to improve your chances of winning.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER History was made at the 2015 Belmont Stakes when American Pharoah won the Triple Crown, the first since Affirmed in 1978. As magnificent as the champion is, the team behind him has been all too human while on the road to immortality. Written by an award-winning New York...

Dein Pferd ist Dein Spiegel und wenn es derzeit gerade nicht so läuft, wie Du es Dir wünschst, liegt hierin eine riesige Entwicklungschance! In diesem Hörbuch erfährst Du, wie Du gelassener mit herausfordernden Situationen umgehst. Wir setzen mit diesem Programm bei Dir an und bringen Dich in einen optimalen Aktivierungszustand. Idealerweise sogar in einen Zustand der Freude - Reiten im Flow ist das Ziel! Denn das beste Erlebnis führt zum besten Ergebnis.

The moving true story of an ordinary Welsh woman who dreamed of breeding a race horse, and Dream Alliance, who defied the odds to become a champion and brought a community together. Janet Vokes was running the bar in her local working men’s club in the small Welsh mining community of Cefn...

Year after year, climbers return to the world's most difficult mountains. At these places, even the most cautious climber is vulnerable to mistakes, bad weather, and bad luck, which often leads to death. This collection offers harrowing accounts of extreme mountaineering and its potentially fatal consequences.

'Poignant and compelling, an equine Bridget Jones.' – Racing Post Being a stable lass is probably one of the hardest jobs in the country, and yet for Gemma Hogg it is the most rewarding. She works in the beautiful Yorkshire market town of Middleham and if her colleagues are occasionally...

In more than a century of American Thoroughbred racing, only 13 horses have won the Triple Crown (the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes, all won in the same season). Veteran turf writer and racing historian Edward L. Bowen takes us through the rich history of one of the most formidable and exciting challenges in all of sport. Bowen covers the trainers, owners, and jockeys who etched their names into the annals of thoroughbred racing, and the “lucky 13” who captured all three jewels of the Triple Crown, racing’s most prestigious prize.

A natural on a horse since he was able to walk, and imbued with a pure love of riding, Declan Murphy became one of the most brilliant jockeys of his generation before his world came crashing down at the final hurdle of a race at Haydock Park. His skull shattered in 12 places, he was believed to be dead, the last rites were read and the Racing Post published his obituary. Miraculously, and the word is not used lightly, he survived and defied medical thinking in recovering to the extent that 18 months after his fall, he was able to saddle up for one more race.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER “A vivid portrait of America’s greatest stallion, the larger-than-life men who raced and bred him, and the dramatic times in which they lived.”—Geraldine Brooks, author of Horse The powerful true story of the champion Thoroughbred racehorse who gained...

Of all the things that a nation, or even an individual, need to survive a crisis, none is perhaps as necessary as hope. That feeling that somehow one can survive, win even, though the odds are stacked against them and the outlook is grim. Throughout its history, the United States has been blessed, often when most needed, with hope from a strange place.

A quarter of a million people braved miserable conditions at Epsom Downs on June 2, 1954, to see the 175th running of the prestigious Derby Stakes. Queen Elizabeth II and Sir Winston Churchill were in attendance, along with thousands of Britons who were all convinced of the unfailing superiority of English bloodstock and eager to see a British colt take the victory. They were shocked when a Kentucky-born chestnut named Never Say Die galloped to a two-length triumph at odds of 33-1.

They had no business being there. They were up against million-dollar horses owned by patricians, oilmen, Arab sheiks, and Hollywood producers. They were ten regular guys, and all they wanted was to win a race. Instead, they won the hearts of America. In 2003, a three-year-old with the unlikely...

Bobbie the Wonder dog crossed more than 2,500 miles of plains, desert and mountains to find his way home - and became the inspiration for Lassie. Cher Ami the pigeon, despite being shot twice, delivered a message that saved the lives of 194 soldiers in 1918. Trakr the police dog spent two days exhaustively searching Ground Zero and found the last survivor of the 9/11 attacks. Ever since Alexander the Great named a city after the horse who saved his life in battle (and another after his dog), human history wouldn't be the same without the awe-inspiring tales of amazing animals.